A Place for Vanishing by Ann Fraistat

Author:Ann Fraistat [Fraistat, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2024-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

FLYNN HAD APPARENTLY SPENT YEARS TELLING people stories about our house, dressing himself as the local expert. Funny how he’d never been inside. Before, he’d only ever ventured as far as our yard. And his first steps into the foyer were hesitant, weighty. He marveled at the interior like he was on the world’s most exclusive backstage tour.

As we walked in, I called out, “Mom, Flynn’s gonna be over for a little while, okay?” And I braced myself for her to flit out from the kitchen, hopefully not still wearing a nightgown with pit stains.

But no one answered. My chest unclenched. Mom was probably outside in the garden, and Vivi was probably upstairs in her room.

Good thing, too. Flynn seemed overwhelmed as it was. It almost felt like I should leave—give him and the house a private moment together. I settled for keeping my mouth shut and standing aside.

He stared at the cricket-themed living room window and the housefly-themed dining room window like he was trying to memorize them.

When he saw the kitchen through the Gothic arched doorway, he gasped. “Whoa!” He dashed in to gape at the enormous mosaic of animals feasting in a lush green garden. “This is…”

“Creepy as hell?” I autofilled.

“Couldn’t put it better myself.” Flynn crouched to touch the boar and the stag tearing into a mangled carcass. “I wonder what it means.”

“You think it means something?” I asked. “Like, spiritualism-wise?”

“I’d be shocked if it didn’t.” He surveyed the rest of the kitchen floor, his mouth pressed flat. “The symbolism is…It’s everywhere.” He toed the tiles by the sink with his scuffed sneaker. “Songbirds eating meat? I’d say it has something to do with the corruption of the innocent. Unexpected betrayal? If you ask me, this is somebody’s idea of a tongue-in-cheek joke.”

I scanned the mosaic uneasily. “If it’s a joke,” I said, “it’s not very funny.”

Flynn shrugged. “Maybe we don’t know the punch line yet.”

Something about that snagged a shivering spot at the base of my spine.

Then my eyes caught on the previously smashed patch. To my surprise, Mom had already refinished it, and my jaw dropped when I saw what she had done with the tiles she’d been so inspired to place.

The newly completed section held baby rabbits, their soft fur smeared with blood. Their strangely sharp teeth tore into a quail, which was flapping in a futile attempt to escape.

It was the same design Vivi and I had found last night in the attic. Rose’s design #14: “The Feast.”

But Mom, as far as I knew, hadn’t seen the design. The trunk upstairs had been covered with dust when we found it. No fingerprints. When I’d asked if she remembered the section from when she was a kid, she’d claimed she hadn’t. That she was feeling out her new design.

So how had she managed to match the original art so closely?

Dread clutched my body, my tongue too frozen to explain any of this to Flynn.

Luckily, he was busy exploring the kitchen. But then he cried out, and I turned.

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